


Standing At The Center Of It

by sunshlneboys



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Mark and Johnny are Brothers, Multi, NCT Ensemble - Freeform, listen while yutae is tagged its more implied, most members are just mentioned, this is basically just band shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-12-12 10:17:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11735004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshlneboys/pseuds/sunshlneboys
Summary: Rolling Stone Special EditionFrom Dive Bars to Stage Dives:How NCT are Taking Summer by StormRolling Stone writer Moon Taeil travels with the boys of NCT to get insight on what's it like to spend the summer touring sold out festivals, eating waffles at 2am, writing music in the road and being in a band with your best friends in the world.





	Standing At The Center Of It

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote most of this in one sitting and then basically finished & edited it months later so yeah, It's been a long time coming. Also I read way too many Rolling Stone articles in preparation for this.  
> Thank you so much to the prompter, I loved writing this, I hope you like it.  
> Title is from Mad City because obviously

**_Rolling Stone Special Edition_ **

**From Dive Bars to Stage Dives:**

_How NCT are Taking Summer by Storm_

 

It’s roughly 7:28am on a Saturday, the sun’s up and it’s already 22 degrees in the desert. I am standing in front of the large metal can that is going to be my home for the next couple of weeks. I raise my hand to knock when the door flies open and I’m greeted with the brightest smile I’ve ever seen, possibly in my life. “Hey what's up, I'm Johnny,  and welcome to my crib,” Johnny, the 22 year old bassist of NCT stands in the doorway, looking way more cheerful than any normal person should be this early in the morning. I follow him into the tour bus and am greeted by the sight of the rest of the band sitting groggily at the small kitchen table. Yuta, the band’s drummer, seems to be asleep, sprawled across the bench, head resting on Taeyong’s lap, while Mark, the youngest member and Johnny’s little brother, seems dangerously close to falling asleep with his face in his bowl of cheerios. These people are a lot more my speed, hardly awake and not the least bit sorry. The band’s leader and main vocalist, Taeyong is the only other one who seems to be even slightly awake, as he gently nudges Yuta off his lap to get up and shake my hand. They look young like this, all soft and sleepy. And they are young. Johnny is the oldest at 22, Taeyong and Yuta are both 21, having yet to celebrate their birthdays and Mark hasn’t even turned 18. With an average age of 20 years old, Neon City Teens or NCT, the title given lovingly given to them by the fan base, the boys are really living the dream. Starting exactly two days from now NCT will begin their tour cross country playing festivals and shows in the sweet heat of summer.

 

NCT got their start with two brothers. Well half brothers really, but don’t ever say that in front of them, “We’re brothers”, Johnny says firmly, “in every way that matters”. I ask them to elaborate on this, “We were raised together, our mothers are the only difference” Mark says fondly, “Johnny’s been my best friend since I was born”. Johnny wasn't even three years old when his mother died, leaving him to be raised by his father. “I was obviously really young when it happened so I don’t remember her much, it's strange that I remember anything at all, but there was this song that she used to sing when I couldn’t sleep, I could only remember parts of it, a lyric here, bit of melody there. I actually ended up searching online for it when I got a bit older so I could do the same for Mark,” he laughs a bit ruefully before beginning to sing softly in Korean, Little Star by Standing Egg, and Taeyong translates quietly for me, “Close your eyes and listen carefully to my story/Before my story ends, you will dream/Little star tonight/All night, I will watch over you”. He gets a little choked up near the end, singing trailing off into humming, and Mark continues the song for him, running his hand up and down his older brother’s back while he sings. When he’s composed himself, Johnny tells me, “It was really hard for my dad, you know? I was so young when it happened, but I’m so thankful that he found Mark’s mom, for more reasons than one. Not only did my dad have someone to love him and take care of him when he was sad over memories, but I also got a mother figure and a super cool little brother out of the deal”. He’s smiling again, and Mark punches him gently in the shoulder, “You’re so soft”, he laughs, but he’s smiling too.  "We've always been really fond of music," Mark tells me, "growing up our house always had someone singing or playing some kind of music playing". Johnny pick up a well worn guitar from where its resting in the corner of the bus, "This is actually our mom's. she's the one who taught Mark to play, and we wrote some of our first songs on it. We bring it with us on tour now for, i don't know, good luck? sentimentality? I think it's a nice way to keep our parents with us when we travel, remind us where we came from".

 

Yuta and Taeyong come into the picture sometime in Johnny's first year of high school. "When we moved to Vancouver, where our mom is originally from, Yuta was the student put in charge of showing me around. We got along really well right from the beginning," Johnny has a fond smile on his face remembering, "And with Yuta came Taeyong". Taeyong grins from where he's lying on the couch, head pillowed on Yuta's thigh, "Best friends forever or some shit like that," Yuta says but he's smiling too. “After that we all kind of fell naturally together, we learned to play instruments starting with varying degrees of skill-" ("Yuta none, Mark extremely well," Johnny snickers while rolling off the couch and out of Yuta's reach) "-and the band kind of came together easily like that," Yuta finishes with a glare thrown at Johnny who is now making tea in the tiny kitchen, completely unfazed. Six years is a long time to have been friends, how aren't sick of each other? "Oh yeah, I'm sick of these fools everyday," Taeyong snorts, but Yuta is petting his hair so I'm having trouble believing him. Their dynamic is a well practiced one and they all fit seamlessly together which makes it easy to see why their band works so well.  They're very adamant that they're friends first, and a band second. It helps that they're all so close, able to work together like a well oiled machine, understanding and knowing what they each need.

 

I ask them about their band name, Neon City Teens, because i'm curious as to why they never use it, often preferring just to use the letters NCT. “The name came for the very beginning of the band, back when we were like, fifteen years old” Yuta explains, “I think when you're fifteen, everyone feels a little alienated. We created a place where we could feel like ourselves, like the people we were in ‘Neon City’ were who we truly were or wanted to be,” he looks surprisingly sobered for someone who's usually the first to crack a joke. “Also,” Taeyong jumps in, quite literally climbing onto Yuta, shattering the mood immediately, “I think at the time, we just thought it sounded cool and we liked the feeling of being from somewhere else” Yuta makes to shove at him with a glare, before turning back to smile at me, bright and full of teeth, Taeyong still on his lap, “I think what we mean to say is, is that it's open to interpretation, it can mean whatever you want it to mean.” The band use NCT more often now anyway for practical reasons, “It's easier to remember,” Johnny shrugs, “and it basically conveys the same message if you say each letter” N-C-T or N-City, either way is fine with the guys, so call them whatever you want.

 

The band started out like any other band really, practicing in their parent's basement, playing even the smallest of gigs to get their name out there in the world. "In the beginning, we really had no direction. We would perform covers-",  "-Bad covers" Johnny interjects from his place on the floor, "Yes, bad covers-" Taeyong rolls his eyes, "-of our favourite songs, but starting out is hard, nothing ever sounds the way you want it to, and you can't have a proper band performing only song covers. There's no individuality in that, no personality." And I really want to take them seriously but we are currently sitting in the small recreation area of their tour bus while Taeyong and Yuta try to destroy each other at Mario Cart, Mark is sitting on the back of the couch trying to distract them by waving his feet in their faces and Johnny's on the floor, attempting to read a book he's holding above his face. "The first time we performed an original song was also the first time we ever performed in front of a real, paying audience,” Taeyong continues, giving up on beating his friend and popping down in the seat next to me, “It was a pub downtown, there were about eight people there, Mark was fifteen, and it was awesome."

 

Following that first performance, the band slowly worked their way up to larger venues, from eight, to twenty eight, to two hundred and so on. Through word of mouth, and some creative self promotion, the band managed to make a name for themselves. "We used to do a lot of really embarrassing promotional things," Yuta laughs, "we used to street team. We were basically handing out flyers and talking about the band to anyone who would listen. We'd sell and wear our own merch, play gigs for free, anything to get the band name out there,” he smiles, “we did YouTube videos too sometimes, some covers, tour diaries, us just being dumb basically.” “We still do videos sometimes,” Mark comments from where he is now hanging upside down on the couch,“the fans love it, I think they like to see the real us, you know? What we're like when we're just hanging out, being ourselves”.

 

The band got their first big break three years ago when they were signed to be part of The 7th Sense, a collaboration project organized by their new record label that featured Taeyong and Mark, produced one amazing track then literally disbanded forever. "It was never meant to be a long term thing," Taeyong explains, "It was put out basically as promotion for a bunch of the new artists under our company, and to release this killer track that didn't really suit any group's music style at the time." This song is the track that birthed probably one of the most iconic lines in the band's history. Mark’s “Uh, and that's a long ass ride” at the beginning of his verse is probably one of their most well known lines, both outside of their fandom and within it. “it's really funny,” Mark tells me, “I see signs with it written at every concert, fans ask me to write it when I sign something for them, I've even had people yell it at me in the street,” he laughs. The famous lyric has taken on a life of its own and Mark even brings it back himself in Whiplash, one of NCT’s newer tracks. Mark’s iconic line wasn't the only good thing to come out of The 7th Sense collaboration, the boys also made some of their best (and most famous) friends through it. The track also features members Doyoung and Jaehyun from the vocal duo DoJae, and soloist Ten. "We met some of our best friends through that project," Mark chimes in from where Johnny has joined him in the kitchen, attempting to bake mug cakes with only a box mix, an egg and a microwave, "We are all really close in age and, luckily for us, got along really well.” The next comment is directed at me with a smile, “Hopefully you'll get to meet them at some point during this tour, they're all awesome." The microwave dings and the brothers pull out two slightly lopsided, but still edible looking cakes, “Impressed aren't you?” Johnny smirks, handing Mark his mug, “and you should be, I'm a great chef”. “That's probably the 78th mug cake he's made in his lifetime,” Taeyong interjects from where he's strumming guitar on the couch, “he's burned about half of those”. Johnny merely sticks his tongue out at his friend and eats the tiny rainbow cake contently, perched up on the kitchen counter, long legs dangling. They said that their fans like the real them and I can see why. There's something organic and genuine about these kids, something that makes you like them.

 

I wake up at 2:19am to the sound of a chainsaw. Ok, so maybe it isn’t a chainsaw but it sure as hell sounds like one. It's not my first night sleeping in the same space as the band, but one thing they seem to have failed to tell me is that Johnny sometimes sleeps like he doesn’t know how to breathe. I stumble out of my bunk and into the kitchen to see Yuta and Taeyong sitting at the small kitchen table, cups of tea in their hands. They’re talking quietly and don’t seem to notice my presence until I groggily knock over a glass trying to get some water. When Yuta sees my state he laughs right in my face, loud and unapologetic. Taeyong is kinder, offering me some tea with a tired smile. They look soft like this, curled in the booth, a heavy blanket draped over their shoulders. I complain quietly that I wish they had warned me that they actually share a bus with a grizzly bear, as I fill my glass under the tap. “Honestly, we’ve lived together so long, we’ve kind of gotten used to it,” Taeyong says with a shrug, "Mark doesn't even hear it anymore", Yuta just looks at me and says, “If his snoring is really bothering you just plug his nose,” I’m about to ask how that would help when he continues, “He’ll either die, or wake up; It’s a win-win really”. He smiles at me slowly and I’m a little (read: a lot) terrified of him in that moment. Taeyong must see the look on my face because he shoves his best friend off the bench and onto the floor, reassuring me that Yuta was joking. Probably. I get out of there as fast as possible with the sound of Taeyong quietly berating Yuta to ‘Not scare the guests’ and the later just laughing. I make a mental note to never get on Yuta’s bad side as I make my way back to my bunk. I sleep for the rest of the trip with headphones in and one eye open.

 

NCT's song writing process is something like throwing things at a wall and hoping they stick. Almost literally. The boys write most of their own music but they all have their own processes. Their notebooks are a jumble of lyrics, chords progressions and killer drum beats, obviously depending on who's book we're talking about. It's somewhere between organized chaos and a complete mess. While Johnny and Yuta do contribute to lyrics, the heavy lifting is done mostly by Taeyong and Mark who lyrically, write a majority of the songs that make it onto the finished records. "When we sit down in studio, before doing anything, we all just pull out our favourite, 'thing', something we think could turn out really well, whether it be a cord progression, a lyric idea or verse or whatever, and we present it to each other." Mark explains, "Sometimes we vote on which piece is our favourite or want to work on first and sometimes it happens organically and we merge ideas together. It really depends on what it is". We're in the studio right now with band and they're pretty much how they always are: sprawled out on the couches, instruments and loose paper covering every surface. There's coffee and food resting either in their hands or on empty table space. "If you look at Mad City," Taeyong says, referencing one of their more powerful tracks, "It started with a verse from Mark that he really liked but didn't know what to do with and Yuta had this killer drum beat that he threw behind it on a whim, and it ended up being awesome and we used for the final song".  Yuta smiles, twirling a drumstick between his fingers like a pro, which I guess technically, he is, "It turned out really cool right? That's one of our favourite tracks to perform live, the crowd loves it". The rest of the day is spent pretty much like this: writing, video games, practicing the new songs, ordering takeout, recording, bickering, eating, more writing, a quick nap from Mark, altering a few rifts, coffee break, more recording, more bickering, and finally, leaving the studio just before 1am. These kids are dedicated I'll give you that, they've spent almost 13 hours today in studio just putting in straight work and I put in about four and a half hours of sleep on the couch. "We've got to make the most out of our time," Taeyong explains, "It's rare for us to be able to do a studio day where we're traveling like this so we have to take full advantage of it". Today was work and tomorrow? Tomorrow we're back on the road already traveling to the next show.

 

NCT can eat about 23 waffles in one sitting. I am not joking. They eat waffles like they’ve never been fed, and never will be again. Post-show waffles have become somewhat of a tradition for the band dating back to when they were still in highschool and the only thing open after a small gig at a local pub was the diner downtown. They would tumble off the stage and into Johnny’s crappy (his words, not mine) van, starving and high from stage adrenaline, to go and literally eat their weight in fluffy dough and sugar. And so the waffle tradition had been born. We’re settled into a booth in a small diner just off the highway; the band had just played a festival earlier that day so this feels more like dinner rather than a 1am meal. “I dunno man, waffles are just really really good,” Johnny says brightly when I ask why waffles are their go to food. Mark nods along with his brother’s words while piling strawberry after strawberry on top of his whipcream loaded waffle stack. When I offer to pass him the syrup he looks confused, as if I had handed him ketchup rather than something that people regularly put on their waffles. “He has this thing about syrup,” Johnny grins, smoothly grabbing the bottle from my outstretched hand. Mark just smiles, “It’s real maple or nothing”. “Maple syrup really is the best,” Yuta agrees, “Mark usually brings some with him from home when we travel, but we ran out about a week and a half ago”. Johnny throws himself dramatically against the back of the booth with a loud sigh, “I wish I was as strong as him, those of us who can not live without the sweet syrup must settle for this fake shit,” another sigh, “a modern tragedy really” he leans forward then, taking a huge bite of his food and not looking the smallest bit upset. Mark just snorts and rolls his eyes. The way the boys eat, unsurprisingly, matches their personalities really well. Mark eats his waffles with piles of sweet cream and strawberries, Yuta in some sort of strange sandwich, bacon, egg and cheese between the cakes, Taeyong, chocolate chip, buttered and dipped in the syrup, and Johnny, stacked six feet tall and drowning in sweetness. They eat like children, or maybe rabid animals, and honestly, I’m kind of impressed. The look the waitress gives us when we leave two hours, and 31 waffles (a new record !) later is priceless.

 

It's lucky number day 13 of NCT’s summer tour and we are stranded in the desert. The sun is beating down, our bus is coughing up smoke and we may not survive the night. Taeyong and Yuta are bickering somewhere near the front of the bus, Mark has an acoustic guitar out and is strumming quietly, sitting on the stairs and Johnny is sprawled out in the sand reading a book. So it’s pretty much business as usual. I’m plopped down in the sand near Johnny when Yuta returns, pulling out a deck of cards and leaving Taeyong on his phone to, I’m assuming, deal with the problem. It turns out that we aren’t too far out from the next town, just over an hour’s drive. Taeyong has (amazingly) gotten us a ride there. A friend of the band’s who was apparently supposed to meet up with them at their next venue, is coming to get us and I could honesty kiss the dude when he pulls up in a black SUV, rolling down the window to wave, bright red hair blinding under the bright sun. It’s one of those cars that are way bigger on the inside than they look and we manage to cram five young guys, several instruments, a ridiculous amount of sound equipment and one very tired reporter all into the back of it. Johnny immediately calls shotgun, claiming, “I always ride shotgun,” already plugging his phone into the AUX cord. The opening notes 'Welcome To The Black Parade' play as the rest of us settle into the car, Yuta and Taeyong claiming the middle row while Mark and I get to ride in the back with all the equipment. Mark looks surprisingly unbothered by how the seating turned out, “Sorry dude,” he shrugs apologetically, “seniority rules, and this is almost always how we sit”. In the early days of the band, back when the boys traveled by minivan rather than tour bus, they created some kind of unspoken rules for seating in the car. "Johnny always DJs for us," Mark whispers to me from our spot among the speakers, "he used to drive because he was the first with his license and it was our van but he likes to dance to the music to much and Yuta won't let him have all the power so here we are". The seating arrangement pretty much looks like this, Yuta drives and bickers with Johnny who's DJs, Mark sits behind him and navigates and Taeyong provides snacks. Their redheaded friend Doyoung is driving right now so the roles have shifted slightly but Yuta still picks fights from behind the passenger seat and Johnny streams his favourite music so all is right with the world.

The bands friend Doyoung, actually turns out to be the same Doyoung that was pet of The 7th Sense project that Mark and Taeyong were a part of, and is the other half of of the vocal duo DoJae. The ride goes rather quickly considering there is a snare drum wedged into my shoulder. The boys entertain themselves with a game seemingly created by Doyoung to annoy them, called Vroom Vroom Talk Show. As far as I can understand, the game is a mock of a rapid-fire style interview where the boys pass around an odd glowing microphone that seemingly appeared out of nowhere, and take turns asking each other the most ridiculous questions they can come up with, like a twisted game of truth or dare. Though the boys groan loudly when the flashing microphone appears (“He does this every time," “ok but don't pretend like you don't love it”) they get into it immediately, all talking over each other asking questions or giving unwanted commentary on what's going on around them. The questions range from insightful (At one point Johnny is asked if he we're to be reborn, what he would want his life to be like to which he replies, “It‘s perfect the way it is,” turning around and flashing us a peace sign and a smile while the boys groan about him being a cliché.) to borderline ridiculous (Yuta is asked by Mark if he would drink a jar of pickle juice for $100, “obviously, that's basically free money” is his answer, complete with his trademark grin full of teeth. Taeyong promptly chokes on is water). It's hilarious and the boys love it, despite what they tell Doyoung. The next hour passes rather quickly like this, and we're at the venue in no time.

 

Seeing NCT perform live is magic. I've seen the boys perform before but there's something special about today. Maybe it's the way we got here, crammed in the back or the slightly too small car, reminiscent of old times. Or maybe it's that a lot of their friends are here today, some of them performing as well. Maybe it's the perfect weather or the roaring crowd. I don't know. What I do know is that when NCT walk onto the stage, setting sun at their backs, the kind of look invincible. They immediately launch into Firetruck, a high energy and a crowd favourite. They play two more popular songs (Limitless and Mad City) immediately after, before finally introducing themselves as NCT and the crowd devours them. Today's show is as follows: Fire Truck, Limitless, Mad City, Good Thing, Back 2 U, Sun and Moon, Whiplash, Running 2 U, 0 Mile, Summer 127 and finishing their set with their biggest hit (no pun intended) at the moment, Cherry Bomb. Having experience playing festivals, NCT has worked out a fairly foolproof set list, with hits scattered between lesser known songs and a few slow songs to balance out the intense ones. The arrangement is set up so that no member has to overexert themselves playing more than three demanding songs in a row. It's a smart system, watching them work through their set with practiced ease, playing off one another and riling the crowd up. I get to see their amazing synchronization when one of Taeyong's guitar strings break in the middle of Running 2 U.  While Taeyong runs quickly to fix his guitar, Mark steps up to play lead and Yuta jumps in to cover his quick vocals with from atop his drum kit. Taeyong returns and easily falls into Marks old place, taking backing guitar and letting him lead the rest of the song. I can see the approval that passes between the band as the song come to an end, not bad, not bad at all. They finish their set and an encore of fan favourites from their second album, Baby Don't Like It and Heartbreaker, before they finally wave goodbye to the crowd for the night. They pour off the stage into the waiting arms of their friends, sweaty and glowing from stage. I finally get to meet Jaehyun, the other half of DoJae and a good friend of the band, when the blond boy comes up to crush Mark in a hug. Johnny sees him and pulls him into a hug, flirting a bit before the boy rushes off to congratulate Taeyong and Yuta, face flushed. It's cute and Johnny watches him leave, laughing fondly before turning to talk to Doyoung. It's comforting somehow, seeing them all together like this. They've managed to create a family of sorts, surrounding themselves with people they love, even while on tour. And even though we're leaving again in the morning, the sense of security lingers.

 

About three and a half weeks into their tour, NCT is given a four day break. After a loud “God I hate smelling like bus,” from Yuta, a feeling which I strongly second, the band has decided to stay in a hotel for a few days and work on some music. It’s nothing fancy, but after nearly 24 days on a bus, it’s a welcome change. I though seeing the boys in a studio session was something? No way, when they go into what Yuta calls Creation Mode, it truly is a whole event. Watching the band work on music is like watching a hurricane in motion. There are instruments everywhere, papers scattered on every surface and in the middle of it all sit Mark cross legged on the floor, a worn notebook in his hand. Though the other members write music, Taeyong a little more than the other two, Mark is the real lyricist. He carries his note book every and is almost always writing something, “He’s always thinking, always writing,” Johnny says with a fond smile, “If it’s not in his notebook, it’s on a napkin, or the back of a flyer or receipt”, “That’s why his actual book is such a mess,” Yuta chimes in from the bed where he is lying on (crushing??) Taeyong and playing some video game, “He just shoves things in that book whenever he thinks of something cool”. Throughout this entire conversation Mark hasn’t looked up once, writing furiously, as if he didn’t write fast enough, the words would disappear. We've seen NCT in the studio now but watching them in a relaxed environment is different, but its also exactly the same. They still argue and relax and fool around but they manage to still get work done, it's kind of amazing really. "When we were first starting out, we had a lot of time to just write or practice or whatever, but I think the sole focus on it adds an unneeded stress to our creative process," Mark tells me, "I think working in an environment where there are other things going on lets it happen more organically, where I'm not forcing myself to write, I'm just kind of letting it happen. I think it keeps the music from coming out forced," he flips a couple of pages in his notebook, "we aren't trying to be songwriters, you know? We're just kids who love music and wanted a way to tell the stories we wanted to tell". And they do. While some of their music is just for fun, a lot of their songs have a message within them. Without You, for example, focuses on grief and the loss of someone close to you, while songs like their latest single, CherryBomb, are just meant to hype up the crowd. "Hey," Johnny laughs, "not everything can be deep, we have to have a bit of fun too". Some of their more serious, insightful lyrics actually come from Mark's solo tracks. While not official songs from NCT, the band have released a few songs that Mark wrote and produced, often added to an album as a bonus track or given away on their website for free. "We've pushed Mark to release a full album, or at least sell his music but he won’t," Taeyong explains when I ask why the songs are seemingly randomly distributed. Mark smiles from where he's eating pizza on the couch, "It's not about money or recognition or whatever. It just about getting the songs out there, and spreading the message I want to, I don't need anything for that." And so he doesn't. "Besides," he laughs, "if I released an album, I'd be expected to perform the songs live, and I don't think the guys could keep up". This comment earns him a jab in the ribs from Yuta and a headlock from his brother, but they're both laughing though so the comment  doesn't seem to have damaged any egos. They write about eighteen songs in this one sitting and, from what I've heard, at least half of them should make it to studio.

 

It's day 36 when I finally learn about The Shrine. The band gets a lot of gifts from fans. A LOT. They have enough gifts and letters to build a shrine to themselves which, as I discovered, they do. Johnny’s protesting this as I write, “Come on man, it’s not a shrine, it’s just a collection… of various things.. dedicated to us...”. Yuta’s laughing from his spot on the couch, where he is watching Taeyong destroy Mark at Just Dance, “Dude it’s a shrine, just accept it”. The Shrine, is really just an extra closet filled to the brim with things lovingly given to them by fans at different stops and shows. There are letters taped to the wall, clothes stacked neatly in the corner, stuffed animals sitting calmly along the walls, what appears to be a box overflowing with more letters, and other assorted items mixed in. Johnny gathers a few, dozen, items into his arms and scatters them into the space in front of the couch. The rest of the band gathers around, game forgotten and playing Eye of The Tiger in the background. And so we spend the next hour or so sorting through a huge pile of gifts, each of the boys pulling out their favourites and explaining the story behind them. “I think the best gifts to get are the ones that you can tell they put a lot of thought into,” Taeyong says as he shows off custom made pins, displayed proudly on his denim jacket, “letters are also great !” Johnny proudly announces that he currently holds the record for the most letters, “632 and counting” he grins, “Ok but, you're also openly bi so you have like, twice the opportunity for love confessions,” Yuta teases. Johnny just ignores him, “This one’s my favourite, ‘I want to have xxxx with you fatass. Love you forever darling’”. The letter actually says ‘xxxx’ by the way, this isn't just cut for the magazine. “It was taped to the door of our bus during one of our shows, it’s actually really funny,” he’s smiling down at the note, made up of multiple post-it notes, stacked up to make a little booklet, “the dude who wrote this for me, a guy named Ten, is actually one of my best friends”. Ten, as it turns out, is the same Ten who released the hypnotic Dream within a Dream earlier this year. He is a soloist under the same company and also the 5th member of The 7th Sense, which is how they all met. “Ten will be at your last tour stop with us actually, you can meet him, he’s awesome” Mark is visibly excited. “hero worship” Yuta mouths. Mark doesn’t notice.

 

While the boys all love to get letters, they each seem to have certain items they specifically get a lot of. Taeyong, surprisingly receives quite a bit of stuffed toys, his favourite is the massive stuffed bear named Harold who “is really good for cuddling, but he's super lazy and sleeps in my bed most of the time,” Taeyong laughs; “He took my spot as best cuddler” Yuta pouts, and I can't tell if he's joking or or not. Mark’s favourite gift is journals, he has about 3 full ones sitting carefully next to his bunk and is currently working his way through a fourth. “I’ve said this before in an interview but, I love getting things like this, things that I can actually use. But now that I've said that on record,” he laughs, “I've gotten about twelve journals that are waiting to be filled,” if I had a camera, he would be looking directly into it, “I'm trying to work through them all though, I'll fill them eventually, I promise”. They also seem to get a lot of clothes for fans as gifts. "We -get a bunch of really cool band t-shirts a lot of the time," Taeyong explains, seemingly rocking one, a Nirvana shirt hanging off his small frame, at this very moment, "The ones that are in the closet are some that we have doubles of, and while we do love them -thank you to our fans- we don't need two of the same shirt, so we donate them." Yuta's favourite gift to get is earrings, "I don't know who the first person was, but thank you, I wore the earrings the day I got them and I guess it got around that I was wearing them and since then I've received a crazy amount, and they're awesome, I love them". Clothes are probably a good gift, especially considering we're talking about a group made up of young boys. "Dude we hate laundry so much, gifts of clothing are the best," as he's telling me this he's changing out of a black shirt that has somehow gotten soaked by Mark spilling a water bottle on him, within the last five inutes. Johnny reaches blindly towards the closest pile of clothing (Yuta's) and grabs a tie-dye tank from some camp in Quebec that i'm at least 90% sure none of them attended. Clothes seem to be pretty much communal property at this point, the boys wearing whatever they grab first in the morning. Some favourites include these of light wash jeans, ripped so much they're practically falling apart, an oversized sweater from a university in B.C. that Johnny brought with him, and a grey Sailor Moon T-shirt that, while normal sized on Taeyong, is a crop top on Johnny. Will that shot him from wearing it? “No of course not. I have rocked a crop top in the past and will continue to do so,” He laughs, “Hell, maybe I'll wear it one stage, I’ve never gotten any complaints”. There are probably others, but a lot of their clothes look the same, various black band tshirts, so how would I know? All I know is that this clothes sharing has resulted in three things: one, all of their clothes are comfortable and worn in, two, the band looks like a unit, like a team and they are, and three, it is really hard to for them to find specific items. They love their shared closet though, they tell me adamantly, "It makes us feel like a unit," Yuta lowers his voice to a whisper and leans towards me conspiratorially, "also i makes laundry like, a million times easier".

 

Today is the last show of this tour and it's safe to say I'm a little sad. I mean the boys are probably more upset, but I'm going to seriously miss these kids. Today's venue is a huge three day music festival and the crowd is ravenous. The boys are backstage preparing and nerves are high. "We've played big shows before, but this is our last one for this tour and-" Mark downs his Gatorade, "-this crowd is huge". Yuta is rolling his drumsticks together, letting the familiar feel of them in his hand reassure him, "Its always harder playing to a crowd who has no idea who you are, or only knows one of your songs." Johnny smiles at his bandmates, then at me, "You really have to let the songs speak for themselves, and choose ones that the crowd will like, despite having never heard them before."  And the songs do speak for themselves. By the second song and the crowd is swarming the stage, singing alone. Halfway through the set we're given a surprise treat when the band launches into the almost unfamiliar tune of one Mark's solo tracks. It's Sing Sang Sung, a quick paced song with a killer hook, which Mark released with his friend Yoonho sometime between NCT's second and third album. Taeyong takes Yoonho's half of the lyrics and the crowd eats it up, jumping to the bass whether they know the lyrics or not. They finish their set riding that energy all the way into the demanded encore.

 

When the lights finally go down they pour off the stage, sweaty and satisfied, bodies humming with adrenaline. Mark full on jumps on his brother's back who starts spinning in a circle. Yuta is jumping up and down, arums pumping in the air when Taeyong back hugs him with enough force to send them crashing into Johnny's spinning form, leaving the band in a sort of group hug in a heap on the floor. Their friends and other groups seemingly come out of nowhere, adding to the dog pile or pulling them up into a hug. I finally get to meet Ten who is probably 12 inches shorter than Johnny and has an ear full of silver that would put Yuta's to shame. He's quite literally dancing around them until Johnny pulls him to a stop, arm draped around his shoulder with a grin. I also see Doyoung bouncing around the group, handing them waters, and Jaehyun, who is pulled under Johnny's arm for a hug almost immediately. It's a mess of limbs, sweat and smiles and the boys look ecstatic. They're surrounded by people they love, they just played a killer show, and they ended their show with a bang. It's been a good night and there's really only one thing left to do.

 

"So," Taeyong starts with a grin, Yuta's arm wrapped securely around his shoulder, "who’s ready for some waffles?"

The waitress is going to hate us.

 

_Moon Taeil is a writer for Rolling Stone Magazine. With a history in vocal performance, he offers a fresh perspective on the life of a musician. His works covering the stories of up and coming bands have been praised for their honest feel and getting the heart of the people behind the music._

_For more of his works check out his blog @ rockoverthemoon.com_

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to Chey, who had a very serious discussion with me about Johnny's arms and Yuta being rude as hell  
> [If you want, come talk to me on twitter](https://twitter.com/emojeonguk)


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